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| The World in One Place |
It's Friday, but I took free from work to do something very special: Going to Disney Sea with Tsubasa! She is one of my first and dearest friends in Japan and I want to thank her at this place for accompanying me at this day :)
You might wonder and say: What is Disney Sea? At first, I was actually clueless too, because when we planned this, we talked about Disneyland. But Japan is always full of surprises ;)
When we met at the station of Disneyland about midday, Tsubasa told me that there are two theme parks of Disney from which I can choose from. Disneyland, which is more for kids, and Disney Sea, which is more for people from the age of high-school students on.
The structure of this theme park represents the world / its continents. Of course, with attractions which are linked to famous Disney movies. And on a short note, you can buy alcohol in Disney Sea :P
Well, being a traveler made the choice between the two ones easy :D
Venice
It was love at the first sight ^^ When we entered the theme park, we entered Venice with its old buildings and bridges. Fascinating how real all these buildings looked. They sure put a lot of effort to build this park. Despite the fact that it was Friday, many people were already there. I'm sure I don't want to find out how full it will be at the weekend. Or is it like in the saying "the more, the merrier"? ;)
New York
The world is a small place, so it took us just minutes to go to America. More specific, we went to the "Hightower Hotel" in New York. It is said that the founder of this hotel, Harrison Hightower, hoarded all kinds of treasures from all over the world. This character is modeled after (the real) William Randolph Hearst, an American newspaper magnate. If you want to find out more about the history, here is my
source.
Maybe you know already the "Tower of Terror" from other Disney Theme Parks. Their story is actually different from the one here, because Disney decided to give this one in Tokyo an unique and new background story. Things which are better in Japan#592 :D
For everyone else, at this tower you go at first a looooong way up and then .... well I think you can already guess it :) I thought we would just fall a long way ;) But we fell and got up in high speed repeatedly which was really pushing my adrenaline. In my opinion, it was better this way, because you never knew when it's over and it made more fun this way :D
Somewhere in South America
The next place was South America where we entered an old Mayan temple. It was built with the intention to recreate the temple of "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom", so I think. Okay, maybe they had no waiting lines in the movie, I don't remember exactly ;)
Here we entered a ride on a car like in the 4th movie. I know what you're thinking, but they didn't used really much out of that movie. Just the car, I think. Most of the things they used came from the 3 movies before :)
The ride was exciting, we went through all kinds of tunnels with many strange things, like a part where arrows from blowguns seemed to come out from the walls. Of course, we just went through :D And we saw Indiana Jones a few times.
After escaping the Rolling Stone from "Raiders of the Lost Ark", Indy wished us farewell and we went out ^^
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| Dr. Jones ??? |
Next to temple was an old hangar which was used for a show. Luckily we came at the right time, so we didn't need to wait too long. The show consisted of many dances, acrobatics and a fantastic music. If I remember correctly the theme of the show was "Wind, Water and Fire". After two adrenaline pushing attractions, it was a good idea just to enjoy this show. I really liked it, especially the rain and thunder which seemed to be very real :D
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| Jungle Fever |
Steam Punk Era
It was about 6pm, so we decided to buy something for dinner. There was a variety of different restaurants, so I asked Tsubasa if there was a special dish in this theme park. Actually there was, it was a "Gyoza Sausage". Gyoza is a typical dish in Japan, China and many other Asian countries.
I think a good way to describe it is: A mix of meshed meat and vegetables, rolled in a thin piece of dough. In general, they are so small, they fit in your hand easily.
Well, Japan is known for experimenting with food, so they made it longer and used more dough, until it looked sausage-ish :D
Sorry I got a bit distracted, where were we? Aah yes ... Steam Punk. The area we went wasn't built with a specific country in mind, so I think. It represented the style from the books by Jules Verne. At first, we went to the "Journey to the Center of the Earth". I have to admit I didn't saw the movie before, but I read the book. It's written very well and easy to read, I can just recommend it ^^
The attraction was kind of a roller coaster, but more like the ride we did in the "Temple of Doom". We saw all kinds of creatures on our way, they even used real fire. Really hot, by the way :D Only at the end, we went down really fast ;) Man, I just love roller coasters :)
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| Steam Punk City at Night |
At last, we wanted to see the open air show at the evening. But we had still time to spend, so we decided to go to the attraction next to us. It was a real underwater trip! You know, like in the stories with Captain Nemo where they see all kinds of wonders and creatures in the Deep Sea :) It really surprised me how beautiful the world was they had built underwater. And the bathysphere we used as vehicle was kind of cozy too :D
The Show of Imagination
We arrived at our place some minutes before the show started. It's impossible to describe this show without writing dozens of lines of text, so I just summarize it: Image a musical on water with all kinds of characters from Disney, many fountains, fireworks, lasers and fire. In addition they used mist as screen for 3D projections. Well, and a dragon :D
It was literally a fantastical day with a fantastical friend ^^
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| The Dragon! :) |
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| Gondoliers of Venice |
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| Temple of Wai.. I mean Doom ;) |
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| Arielle's Palace |
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| Waiting for the Show |
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| Friendly Spirit of the Amazon |
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| Captain Nemos Nautilus? |
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| Disney Parade on Water |
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| Steam Punk Tower |
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| The Best Seats for the Show :) |
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| Disney: Inspiring my Imagination since 1989 :D |
I tried to find her friends by communicating over Smartphone, but even when we send us each other detailed descriptions how we looked and where we were, it was sure a difficult challenge ^^
It was especially funny, because two of them were working at Rakuten. It is the online selling platform in Japan. You could say it's like Amazon, but the whole concept of the buying system is very different. That's mainly the reason why no one in the Western countries knows Rakuten, I suppose oO
At the Thai Festival, there were just booths with lots of different food and drinks. Don't get me wrong, if someone loves (nearly) every food, it's me ;) I just hoped they would also have some performances or another kind of entertainment program. But well, that's just me :)
So each of us grabbed something to eat and we headed out for the park nearby. Because eating while going in this crowd isn't much of a fun ;) Luckily, the park wasn't as crowded as the festival itself, so we found a spot for us easily. There we used the time rest and to share our food ^^
Because it was still very early, we decided to go to an 居酒屋 (Izakaya, Japanese bar). Of course, the way there was long, so we bought some beer as provisions for the walk :D
After a while (and a little shopping center), we found a Chinese restaurant. Well, we all ate Japanese food the last days, so this was a good change :) And Tang made the ordering process in Chinese much smoother ^^
Before the big kite was getting up, some smaller kites flew first. And with "smaller", I mean about 3 or 5 meters per side :) They had also a class system for the kites depending on their size. Of course, the bigger the kite, the more difficult was the task to bring it up into the air. Even for these "smaller" ones 20 or more people were necessary to pull and hold them.
These kites are also built new every year. I watched a video beforehand about this festival. It's actually pretty amazing how they build them. Just search for "big kite japan" at Youtube and you will find many of these videos ;) This day we were also lucky with the wind, so they got everyone of them up in the air at the first try. Well, nearly everyone :D
Afterwards, the people at the rope pull the kite up in the air. To not to break the kite and to let it get more altitude, they tried to hold him sometimes.
The rope for each bigger kite was additionally attached to an anchor made out of wheat and woods. So when a kite was high enough, no one had to hold the rope anymore and it was done ^^
This was again a part of Japanese traditions. And I got sunburned :D
